Hey! I'm Yasmine, the new Cow House Press intern! I'm really excited to be able to be a part of the Cow House and hopefully make things at least a little bit easier for the team as the summer progresses. You'll be able to see me in action creating social media posts across the board and helping out at tabling events.

The inaugural Prism Awards winners were announced this weekend at the Queer Comics Expo, and we couldn't be more excited to learn that HP Lehkonen's Short Gay Stories won in the category of small to mid-size press.

The Prism Awards recognizes works by queer authors and works that promote the growing body of diverse, powerful, innovative, positive or challenging representations of LGBTQAI+ characters in fiction or nonfiction comics." Honestly, I don't know how the judges could have chosen among all the amazing nominees!

"Circling back to the Ladydrawers, my top selection from CAKE is a comic by Finnish creator Hanna-Pirita Lehkonen, translated into English as Short Gay Stories. It's an essential queer comic that traces their journey of being nonbinary and demisexual. With grace and humor, Lehkonen's story is told through seemingly unrelated superhero, fantasy, and genre vignettes. One after another, they lovingly illustrate (and color) some of the finest comics work I've seen in a long time."

Cow House hung out with our friends, the Ladydrawers at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo this weekend! It was Connie's first time helping out at an expo table and it was a blast. Rivven brought a ridiculously amazing gudetama tent which was great for times when the show got to be too overwhelming (reminded me of the quiet spaces Chicago Zine Fest offers.)

CAKE 2017 was also the debut for the paperback version of the Wicked and The Tired. We were pretty nervous because the shipment of books didn't arrive till 8pm the night before! But they were shiny and ready

Prep for one of our favorite shows of the year Chicago Zine Fest is in full swing. We needed extra hands so Production Assistant (and mushroom) Jenna came in to give us a hand with folding, foiling and corner-rounding the super special limited edition version of The Wicked & The Tired. (Available here)

"Cow House Press’ first book is full of stories and individual illustrations that cover a variety of tones – Rivven Prink contributed well-inked, ominous moths, whereas A. Cris Valles and Daimon Hampton contributed pieces that are respectively joyful and delightfully angsty – that show off their horror chops, but also hint at the range of which they are capable."

"The stories mostly defy conventional narrative, making it less a comic to read, and more a comic to feel, not unlike the comics equivalent of a mix tape. It follows the "show more, tell less" school of comics that calls to mind the best of wordless underground comics. There are elements of absurdist humor to offset the anxiety, which give the read a unique gothic charm."